This for That
by Taisuke Harakiri
Summary: They say it takes one to know one, and this is ever so true at a certain deserted pizza place. Vincent converses with a fellow diner who happens to know a lot more than he's letting on. [Yu Yu Hakusho crossover, implied hints of shounen ai]


This for That

Taisuke Harakiri

Little niggling shounen-ai idea at the back of my mind. It had to be written eventually, I suppose. I hope I'm not making either of the characters OOC, though with their personalities I think it's difficult to not make them slightly non-canon outside of angst/tragedies. A predominantly angst authoress writing humor tends to have unexpected results...

- - - - -

A Tuesday at a pizza place is, shall we say, not the most interesting place to be if you're a social person. Silence prevails enough so that even the humming of the oven can be heard in the dining area, so that the conversations of employees are only too simple to eavesdrop upon, and so that introverts can finally sit and enjoy the addictive food with the benefit of not having to tolerate millions of people talking to beat the band.

Which was exactly why ex-TURK Vincent Valentine was sitting in a nice corner at one such pizza place, ashamedly muling over the comic section of the newspaper when the doorbell chimed to signal another person entering. He scarcely bothered to look up at the annoyance until a lack of footsteps alerted him to something being amiss.

If the doorbell had wrung, then someone had doubtlessly come in- there was no one else there to trigger the irritating sound by leaving. He looked up from his coffee in time to see the hostess walking over to the entrance, menu in hand. In a few moments, she nodded and started for the front section of the resteraunt; the dining area was divided into two halves, separated by a wall with open spaces and decorated with store logos. Undaunted curiousity made the red-eyed man tip his head sideways slightly, to see if he was crazy. Or if the hostess was.

Both of which, he was relieved to find, were unfounded allegations (though, claiming that the little host girl was off her rocker was still up to question in his mind). She was leading a tall, thin man to a booth almost adjacent to his. He was pale and detached, with a few more inches of long, glossy black hair than Vincent, and a grey mask hiding the majority of his face from view. The first word in the gunslinger's mind was _weirdo_, but then again, who was he to talk? Him in his all-but-destroyed red cape and bandanna, with a dull gold claw for a left arm? He nearly laughed, a few cut breaths leaving his lips in a mockery of the gesture.

Immediately though, that dark head of hair was whirling around at the mininscule sound, positively lavender eyes alert to the source of the noise- Vincent tensed up at the sudden, surprising action of the latter. Rose red met violet, and there was an awkward, calculating moment before the strange newcomer seemed to 'hmph' in indignance and turn back to his menu.

Vincent was a bit fluttered. Such a sound as the passing of air against flesh was one not commonly heard by mortals, even in this deathlike silence. He scarcely imagined that it was coincidence the man sensed his presence at the exact moment he was thinking over the irony in calling him a weirdo. It seemed unlikely, highly unlikely.

Then again, the ex-TURK realized, he was making too much out of this. Maybe it was his twisted little brain latching onto the first oddity that passed by, or that he was becoming...bored?...with the almost complete solitude? He shrugged and went back to his comics.

What he failed to notice was the quiet, snoopy turn of a head and the cold amethyst eyes looking him over even as a little smile curved the red-clad man's lips. It was a long moment before the hostess returned to his table.

"Um, are you ready to order sir...?" She squeaked out, holding a pad and pen. He adjusted the grey breathing mask across his face, thinking for a moment.

"Just a Dr. Pepper."

"Oh, uhm, I'm sorry sir, we don't have Dr. Pepper. Um, the drinks are on the back..." She gesticulated at the menu in his hands.

He grumbled a little "oh," turning the menu over and spying the list of beverages. "...Cherry Pepsi. No ice, if you please."

"Of course. Um, I'll just be getting that..." And she scampered off towards the back of the building. Twin strains of exotic irises watched her hurried exit, a movement so subtle it was to be percieved as the mere twitch of a violet vein, before he reangled his posture so as to have an inconspicuous view of the man across the divider. He was of a stately, though modest manner, the nature of which held familiarity in it; similar to his own stature. Strikingly unique eyes are what caught his attention, however, in that they were not the usual hues of green, blue, or brown. Not that his own eyes were anything boring either, but these were irises of only the truest red...

"Mako injections, much?" he said distinctly, in a tone as to not be imposing upon the other; rather, he pushed infinitestimal charisma into it, arousing the attention of the other man.

Vincent's mental foothold on the situation was rather dislodged at that. He caught himself, diverting from jerking his head up- an act percieved as cowardly and fearful- instead opting with a flick of the gaze towards the other, imposed authority.

"...What?" he murmured finally, making himself audible across the silence. The skinnier grinned under his mask.

"Mako injections. You had them?" He said again, an air of slight arrogance at having control over the conversation. Vincent looked up fully now, intrigued.

"I'm assuming that you have had much the same," he turned the situation around at him, keeping a locked gaze. An airy laugh fell on the deserted eatery.

"Maybe, maybe not." he almost teased. "Who wants to know?"

Vincent muled over it- he could trust this stranger with as much as a short "Vincent."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Karasu." He made no hesitation. "When did you join?"

"...Some time ago." No need to give him enough information to look up his record. Vincent straightened in his seat, cracking his back as he did so. A slight pop and a grimace marked it. A thin brow quirked.

"You should practice better posture."

"I do," he said curtly. "I was reading."

"Yes, comics can be rather engaging, can't they?" Vincent looked quickly down at the newspaper laid across the table, finding that the comics section was in plain sight, and chuckled. Pale hands picked up the paper and folded it neatly away, altering his position so as to be able to converse freely across the divider. Karasu mimicked him, turning sideways in his seat.

"What inspires your query?" he inquired, judging the black-clad man's reaction alongside his reply. Karasu shrugged, and a lock of hair fell over his shoulder into his face.

"Just wondering. Thought I may have bumped into you at one point or another."

The short hostess had returned, carrying two drinks on a platter. She set a glass on Karasu's table, looking from it to the other drink before going across to Vincent's side and doing the same, platter in hand as she left again after a quick, "everything okay?"

Karasu looked back towards his companion of sorts, who took a sip of his drink, blinked, and set it down again. "Yes, well I don't think you would have in any case. I left a long time ago."

"I joined a long time ago."

Vincent laughed. "Thirty years ago?" An unintended slip- Karasu looked surprised.

"Eh, no. Twelve." A pause. "You look good for your age."

"Mako tends to do that."

"Mmm. That would place you around the time that the Jenova Project came to its' climactic point, wouldn't it?"

Well-informed. This piqued his interest; their conversation was beginning to seem more like a joust of acumen than chat between fellow diners. "Somewhere in there, yes. ...What division?" He nodded towards Karasu.

"TURKs. Started in SOLDIER, as a matter of fact. I assume I wasn't cut out for that, given my immediate transfer after I was accepted. Most of the men in SOLDIER were bulky, and loud besides." Vincent laughed a bit, thinking of effeminate Cloud.

"A friend of mine would scoff at that."

"Who?"

"...Strife. Cloud Strife. Girliest man I've laid eyes on, besides Sephiroth himself."

"You're one to talk. So you've been face-to-face with the man?" Vincent chose his next words with care.

"When ShinRa was still a manufacturing company, Sephiroth was just a General. He walked around headquarters like any other person, eating in the same cafeteria, using the same elevators, and everything. He was actually quite the decent person until he went mad."

"I have heard of him as having been driven into the state he was in during Meteor."

"Yes, well, I think anybody would want to destroy the Planet after finding out they were genetically engineered by an idiot."

Laughter on both sides. Karasu lifted his beverage to his lips, carefully pulling his mask down to take a drink, purse his lips, and lift it again. In that moment, Vincent caught a glance at his face- thin, gaunt as the rest of him, his semblance was not one displeasing. Vincent caught on the recognition of finding this to be a rather handsome man, if feminine.

The black-clad man blinked, eyeing his drink. "What, per say, did you order?"

"Raspberry ice tea."

"Precisely." He picked up the glass and sauntered over to the divider. "Or would you prefer to keep my drink?"

Vincent looked at the glass, then at the one sitting on his table, and traded with the other. "I was wondering what was wrong with my tastebuds."

"Come now, you aren't that insane."

"Yes, but that girl just might be."

"Agreed upon." Karasu sat down in the booth directly across from Vincent's, placing his drink on the corresponding table. "This Strife boy strikes familiar in my mind. Description?"

"Short, blonde. Quiet man. I ponder _his _sanity from time to time."

"Ah. I knew I'd head that name before. Reno's told me all about him."

"You know Reno?"

"A dear friend of mine, he is," Karasu grinned under his mask.

"Ironic." The red-clad man shook his head mirthfully.

"Then that must mean you're Vincent...Valentine?" Karasu tested. Vincent looked up very suddenly.

"...Yes."

Smug laughter. "He's said something of you as well."

"Such as...?"

"Nothing of interest. Just some of your escapades with Miss Crescent and such."

Some of the amusement wilted away from his expression. He regarded Karasu from under a guarded gaze. "You knew all along...?"

"Maybe. I was making sure I wasn't mistaken."

"Explains a lot- now we are at uneven odds." He slid back into his calculatory manner.

"Yes, and know you want something in exchange for your life story, am I wrong?"

"Possibly. Why do you wear a mask?"

Karasu eyed him. "I like to." A sharper gaze, if nothing more. "I can absorb energy from the atmosphere. Ancient energy, if you must know."

"As do the trees in the Forgotten City?"

"Exactly. Think of them as lightbulbs with electricity. But unlike them, I don't glow." A terse laugh. "Enough of it and I could potentially become a living detonator."

"And you absorb this 'electricity' through inhalation, thus calling for a mask to imped most of it from entering your body."

"Smart, but not clever." Vincent's eye twitched curiously. "It keeps the energy within me from reaching hazardous levels, true, but also allows enough through that I can utilize it at will."

"Intriguing."

"Isn't it? I can concentrate energy anywhere on or relatively near my body and make it spark." Vincent's expression was exceedingly amusing to the man. "Allow me."

The older of the two followed his peer's lilac gaze over the divider as he plucked a packet of sugar from the container on his table and set it down. Within a moment, a few wisps of smoke eminated from it, before the paper package erupted into a furious little flame. As quickly as it started, the miniature fire smothered itself out, leaving behind a pile of ash and the smell of burned sugar. Vincent 'hmmm'ed thoughtfully.

"I can see why Reno and yourself became friends." Such a power would be ideal for playing pranks and causing mayhem at HQ, something he knew Reno was very fond of and Rude secretly found amusing, though he usually wound up taking the blame.

"Actually, that was only part of it. The rest was a bit of ass-saving coupled with a very _deceased _bottle of hairspray." Karasu scowled, and Vincent understood utterly. Reno's absolute abuse of his red strands was abysmally reckless and rather horrifying to see for the long-haired men. "Can you imagine trying to fix the mess he would have undoubtedly made??" Karasu seemed to notice Vincent's camaraderie on the topic, and he nodded firmly.

"I know. Cloud's no better, either."

"Well, I guessed as much from his nicknames. Spikey, porcupine..."

"Mm-hmm. Barrett came up with most of them, as a matter of fact."

"Barrett?"

"Comrade." Vincent waved the matter off. "Anyway. You should probably learn how to control your intake of electricity."

"I've heard the same from ShinRa. Hard to be inconspicuous with this thing on." He seemed to sigh.

"Besides the point. You're rather handsome from what I can see." A ruse. A tiny sparkle alighted Vincent's blood gaze.

"Not estimably." With it, he pulled the metal item down again after a held breath. Vincent looked him over again, at close proximity now. They could be siblings, at that. High cheekbones, diamond-cut jaw and thin lips, coupled with his alabaster skin tone. Karasu watched red eyes analysing him and a grin alighted his features, revealing pearly sharp canines before he replaced the silver-grey adornment carefully.

By this time a few more people had entered the pizza place, much to Vincent's distaste. He eyed the other diners with thier menus before flicking his gaze back to Karasu. "This has become an unsuitable environment for my preferences." He scooted towards the edge of the booth, pausing purposely. "Will I be accompanied?"

"If you find it in your interests to continue this conversation, I have no pressing matters to attend to as of today." Karasu smiled, and now Vincent offered one back.

"Then we shall."


End file.
